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Ramsey County History – Summer 2020: “Votes for Everywoman: Nellie Griswold Francis, the Women of Rondo, and Their Suffrage Crusade”

Leetta M. Douglas

Votes for Everywoman: Nellie Griswold Francis, the Women of Rondo, and Their Suffrage Crusade Author: Leetta M. Douglas A century ago, women of Minnesota, along with suffragists across the nation, won the hard-fought battle for the right to vote with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. Some…

Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History

Reviewer: Mary Lethert Wingerd

Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History Gary Clayton Anderson Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019 384 pages; hardcover, 42 b&w illustrations, 2 maps, $32.95 Did we really need another book about the Dakota War? My response…

Ramsey County History – Summer 2019: “William DeWitt Mitchell: The Other William Mitchell”

Thomas H. Boyd and Douglas R. Heidenreich

William DeWitt Mitchell: The Other William Mitchell Authors: Thomas H. Boyd and Douglas R. Heidenreich “Like Father, Like Son” is a common saying that most certainly applies to this article. Thomas H. Boyd, a St. Paul attorney, and Douglas R. Heidenreich, former dean of the William Mitchell College of…

Ramsey County History – Summer 2019: “One Hundred Years Serving New Americans: The Centennial of the International Institute of Minnesota”

Krista Finstad Hanson

One Hundred Years Serving New Americans: The Centennial of the International Institute of Minnesota Author: Krista Finstad Hanson 2020 Co-Winner of the Ramsey County Historical Society Virginia B. Kunz Award As visitors and clients open the doors to the International Institute of Minnesota in St. Paul, they…

Diesel Heart: An Autobiography

Reviewer: Mary Lethert Wingerd

Diesel Heart: An Autobiography Author: Melvin Whitfield Carter, Jr. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2019 256 pages; soft cover; 27 b&w photos; $17.95 Melvin Carter and I both grew up in Saint Paul in the 1950s and ’60s. But Carter’s hometown was a world away…

Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece

Reviewer: Alan K. Lathrop

Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece Author: Larry Millett Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018 248 pages; hardcover/cloth jacket; 140 b&w photos; $29.95 Larry Millett, author of Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece, has done an…

Ramsey County History Podcast #12 – Winter 2018: Crusade for Forgotten Souls

Paul Nelson and Susan Bartlett Foote

Crusade for Forgotten Souls Podcast Link In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Minnesota led the nation in reform and modernization of the treatment of the mentally ill. But it didn’t last. Author Susan Bartlett Foote has told the story, a story at the same time inspiring…

Ramsey County History Podcast #11 – Spring 2018: North Star: Civil War Stories

Paul Nelson, Daniel Bergin, and Bill Green

North Star: Civil War Stories Ramsey County Historical Society (RCHS) and Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) have collaborated in the production of the documentary film, North Star: Civil War Stories, about Minnesotans of African heritage who served in the Civil War. At the premiere screening, filmmaker Daniel…

Ramsey County History – Spring 2018: “How St. Paul’s Federal Courts Building and Post Office Became Today’s Landmark Center”

Bob Roscoe

How St. Paul’s Federal Courts Building and Post Office Became Today’s Landmark Center Author: Bob Roscoe In 1969, demolition of St. Paul’s Federal Courts Building and Post Office, a Richardson Romanesque Chateauesque-style public building that the federal government had constructed between 1892 and 1901, seemed imminent. When a…